Omega Fruit

Mary Sea Buckthorn (Female) Bareroot

Species: Hippophae rhamnoides

History: Mary sea buckthorn, aka Marija Bruvele, is a Latvian variety that was bred by professor of agriculture Andrejs Bruvelis as a cross between the female varieties Botanicheskaya Ljubitelskaya, Chuyskaya, and native male plants from the coastal area of the Baltic Sea. The goal was to create a variety better adapted to maritime climates. The berries are high in oil content so this variety tends to be grown commercially for oil production.

Why We Grow It: A prolific variety that holds onto berries well, prolonging harvest for 4-6 weeks. The berries have a milder flavour compared to other sea buckthorns with much lower acid content. They can be made into a sunshine yellow juice, best diluted 70% with water for a Canadian version of orange juice. It's also nearly thornless, which makes harvesting much easier.

The leaves and young branches are suitable for animal fodder, which we can attest to from the hens that run around our retail area in summer, sampling from our potted sea buckthorn plants whenever Steph isn't around to chase them away. Sea Buckthorn have nodules on their roots which help fix nitrogen into the ground, and are a common plant in permaculture orchards for this natural 'fertilizer' effect on plants in its vicinity.

$35.00

Size

63 in stock

Fruit Traits:

Recommended Use: Cooking, baking, jam, wine, juice, tea, animal fodder

Fruit Size:

Storage: Keeps up to two weeks in the fridge

Harvest: August - Mid

Plant Traits:

Canadian Hardiness Zone: 3

Soil Preferance: Prefers clay loam but adaptable to different soil types

Flowering Time: Late

Pollination Requirements: Requires a male plant for pollination in order to produce fruit

Sun/Shade Requirements: Full sun (approx. 8-10 hours of sun daily)

Thorns: Few

General Growth Habit: Shrub reaches 4m when mature, produces good crops. No notable pests or diseases. Flowers in May. Harvest mid August, but harvest can last 4-6 weeks since berries hang on well.

Shipping: Every year we ship thousands of plants across Canada. We carefully bag roots in damp sawdust, then box them and send them out via courier. CLICK HERE to see our shipping policy.

Pick-up: We also have thousands of plants picked up from our nursery each year. The pick-up options is free, though you must wait until you have been emailed a confirmation that your order is ready to pick up, which will have further information such as hours, locations, etc.

When Will My Order Be Ready?

Most of our bareroot plants and tubers are only available for spring planting! Only bareroot apples and pears are available for fall planting.

Spring orders are generally ready to be picked up or shipped out anywhere from late March to late May! We will be in touch in the spring once your order is ready to go.

Orders placed in the spring might not be ready for 1-2 weeks as this is a very busy time of year for us.

Sea buckthorn are divided into the following grades:

-1 year plant - 20-60cm
-2 year plant - Pruned to ~60cm

There is some overlap in size since we are also taking the age of the plants into account. Some older plants may not have put on quite as much vegetative growth but will have larger root systems.

All of these heights exclude the roots since seedlings and some berries will often have a lot of root growth but relatively little vegetative growth (ex. our Shagbark Hickories seedlings are often 5-15cm above the soil but will have roots that reach 20cm+ in length).

Not all of our berries and seedlings will be available in all of these grades since growth rate can vary significantly across species and even varieties. While we remain competitive in our plant size, it's also worth noting we don't use synthetic chemicals to push vegetative growth, therefore you may find conventional nursery stock larger in some instances comparatively.

Why plant small? It's best to transplant when a plant is young so it can establish its roots before it has a lot of vegetative growth. This is much less stressful on it and bareroot plants tend to catch up and even surpass larger potted ones planted at the same time, after a few years.

Orders that are cancelled last minute due to size (being "too small"), will still incur the applicable cancellation fees if the plants are true to our grading standards as per the agreement of sale when the order was placed.

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